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I've used bee venon for the last 3 or 4 yrs to deal with arthritis in my fingers. It works real well but you have to be patient, at least in my case, because it takes quite a few sessions of stings before there's any sign of improvement. When I first started the bee sting therapy, the arthritic pain & swelling was so bad in my thumb that I couldn't hold a tool in my hand and use it. (Cabinetmaker by trade). I would take bees from the entrance of a hive and sting my ailing thumb , hand, & wrist, using 5-8 stings about 3-4 times a week. I did it all summer and by the Fall there was no more pain,no swelling,...the thumb was normal again, and has been ever since. That was about 4 years ago, and since then I've had to do the forefinger of the same hand, and that too, is back to normal. I also get the feeling that the bee venon is good for my system as a whole,...as I somehow feel good after each treatment session. I'll surely be doing more treatments come spring,.....maybe not with that many stings, but enough to feel the effects of "loosening" and "limbering" in my fingers. I may do some work on my shoulders , too. Yep,..the bees are wonderful in so many ways!

I do supply 2 different women with MS with bees that a doctor administers. 1 has been doing 10 stings a day for almost 5 years and when she started she was confined to a wheel chair and any movement was painful to her. Today you can't tell that she has problems, she walks just like every one else.
The other lady has been doing the therapy for 3 1/2 years and it does not help but she keeps trying.
I have been supplying the bees for free but have started hives for them at their home and help them maintain them.
Clint

Clinton Bemrose<br />just South of Lansing Michigan<br />Beekeeping since 1964

I got into beekeeping because my dad has MS and he wanted to try the bee venom therapy. It helped give him more energy, but he hasn't been stung in a while. They recommend going off all medicines and I don't think that is safe for him to do. We might try it again come spring. I also thought about setting up an observation hive where it would be easy for my mom to catch the bees.

Having been trained in conventional medicine I am always appalled at the attitude usually taken by my collegues when it comes to "folk medicine". The most commen reason to ignore results they don't want to hear is to call any evidence ancedotal. It's interesting that every room in the local hospital has a poster that askes patients to rate their pain on a scale of one to ten. It is presumed that this provides a means of scientificly measuring results. On the other hand if someone states that they had extreme pain before a "folk treatment" and they have zero pain now this is anectdotal. For some reason just because we obtain a doctors degree we seem to think that it requires us to forget that nearly every medical breakthrough that has occured in modern medicine was because someone took the trouble to trace down and analyse a folk cure, determine the active agents involved, and publish it in a scientific journal.

How does a novice handle bees? Answer... Use a wide mouth jar. Find bees visiting flowers. Quickly put jar over bee and flower. Bee will fly up against glass trying to escape. Do not invert jar, put lid on. The bee will continue to try to escape toward the sun. Several bees can be caught in the same jar without others escaping. Put bees in refrigerator and cool down till dormance sets in. Dump bees on counter and grasp them by wings, they will come to life from your body heat. Now you have a bee properly positioned to sting where you want. Cool area to be stung with ice. It lessens pain. P.S. Who can catch the most bees in 10 minutes makes a great game at a beekeeper picknic.

Liability in this day and age is a factor in everything we do, from administering stings to serving a too hot cup of coffee. ( Remember Mc Donalds? ) Heck, Starbucks was sued when some schlep pinched his unit when he sat down on a toilet seat.
I've administered stings quite often to family and friends, always with positive results, but I would strongly suggest the person taking an allergy test first, having an epipen and transportation close by, and having about 2 million in liability insurance.
Better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it.

I have been having on and off rotator cuff problems in my shoulder ever since I strained it hang gliding a couple years ago. I did not have trouble with it last summer when I was getting stung working my bees. Now it is back however I can't quite work myself up to getting myself stung on purpose. It will be interesting to see if I get relief from the roator cuff pain when if I get stung working the bees this spring.

I resorted to bee stings a few years ago for pain in my neck, shoulder and right arm that was a result of degenerative disc disease. I read a book by Amber Rose "How Well Are You Willing To Bee," and my husband would pick the bees off of the landing board of a hive and give me stings right in our back yard. I know the neighbors thought they were witnessing spousal abuse.

I started out with a test sting and then got five more that day. I increased my stings by two each time, getting stung every other day. When I got up to about 16 stings I just kept them at 16 every other day. It took about six months, but the pain went away and stayed away for several years.

About three weeks ago, I started having pain in my right upper arm and forearm. It was a more intense pain than before. I already had some heavy duty pain killers for a ruptured disc in my back, but they had no effect on this arm pain. I went to the Spring NC State Beekeepers Meeting May 2 and 3, and sat in on an Apitherapy class. I got a test sting by the Apitherapist (Frederique Keller) and had planned on being treated during the class. Unfortunately I was the next to the last person in line and they ran out of time about four people ahead of me.

My husband and I stopped Frederique between sessions and she marked my neck, shoulder and arm in eight places with a red felt tipped pen and told my husband to sting those places. When we got home from the conference he followed her directions and I was immediately pain free. It was so miraculous to me. It has been short lived relief - by the next couple of days the pain is back. I am continuing to get stings in the same places every other day and this gets me through the next 48 or so hours. I am hoping that soon I will be able to spread out the length of time between stings.

Incidently, I am a nurse. The doctors and nurses that I used to work with thought that had gone completely nuts when I told them about the apitherapy I was using a few years ago. I'm not nursing anymore, but I'm sure their reaction would probably be the same. The thing is that I haven't needed any pain medication for my arm or my back for three days now. I had spent the previous three weeks taking it every four hours and still in pain. So, who is the crazy one? Not me.

I can't remember if I learned this from Amber Rose's book or Pat Wagner's (I have both of them) but if you keep twenty or so bees in a wide mouth plastic jar with holes in the sides and lid, you can spray the bees with water before you open the jar. This makes them much easier to catch with forceps or long tweezers. One advantage of this over just grabbing them off of the landing board is that you can grab them by the head. When my husband would grab them off of the landing board if he got them by the abdomen they tended to poo when they stung me. I guess he literally squeezed the **** out of them.

I am considering going to The Charles Miraz Course and International Conference in Raleigh, NC in April. Its so expensive, though. If they really want to get the word out and promote apitherapy they should consider reducing the cost: $225.00. I'll see how the funds are looking before I make a definite decision. Anyone else planning to go?

I have noticed that when on the rare occasion I get stung, any pain from some injuries I sustained years ago lessens. Now having said that, the sites that I have been stung at tend to itch like crazy for four or five days. If I get stung on the face though, I don't swell or itch. On my hands it swells and hurts a little for a while and then gets itchy. On my legs, forget about it! It gets hot to the touch and itchy enough to drive me half mad.

I vote to give the forum a go, share links and suggestions, and make sure there is a heading that releases BeeSource from any liability.

Albert

September 8th 2007 is National Beekeeping Day
American Agriculture, its as close as the nearest Honeybee!

apitherapy

We just had our NC spring meeting and Dr.Theo Cherbuliez had a workshop on apitherapy. I volunteered to have my left foot stung for diabetic neuropathy. He said that anyone treated should first be advised of the risk, then be tested for allergy by stinging on the back of the right wrist. He also said NEVER administer a sting without having an epipen available. We had about 25 volunteers who were treated, no problems. My neuropathy is better today(stung Saturday) and I was advised to administer my own stings to the prescribed nerve points. I'm waiting until I can build a little bee box to collect my apitherapy bees in.

There will be a 3-day workshop in Raleigh in April. get details on the AAS website:

I'm all for "aternative" medicine. I'm trying to convince my wife that beesting therapy will help her current chronic cough. She's not convinced that bee stings are something she will voluntarily endure.

I was at Dr.Theo Cherbuliez's and Frederique Keller's workshop, too! Were you in the first class? If so, I was sitting just to your left. (I remember seeing a man with his shoe and sock off.) Are you going to the AAS course and conference in Raleigh?

If your wife is opposed to stings, she may want to try propolis for her cough. You can make a preparation with 140 proof or higher alcohol. I bought a book at EAS in Georgia from Ann Harmon last summer that has instructions.

I haven't made any yet but I did buy some 190 proof Everclear yesterday. It started a nostalgic conversation at the ABC store among the employees about high school, the beach and making PJ in the bathtub there. I guess you had to be there...
Susan

apitherapy

Apitherapy is videly used in Europe - especially eastern European countries - though not to any extent in the UK. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence for its effectiveness in certain conditions and I would welcome an Apitherapy section on the board where it can be discussed.

apitherapy

I guess as long as the doctors and hospitals of the AMA and the drug manufacturers make so much money from pushing pills, they don't care about anything that is cheap and effective. After all,modern medicine is not about healing, it's about treating and getting insurance money. My wife has been treated for a chronic cough since August last year. Her GP and her Pulmonary Specialist were prescribing drugs and treatment that were in conflict with each other. They have diagnosed her ailment variously as allergies, asthma, chronic bronchitis and now COPD. I gave her some honey and vinegar which works for me(I prefer bourbon and honey), and it didn't faze her cough. I'll try some propolis and Everclear.

Beegee- After posting this morning I was inspired to get out the book I had bought and start rendering propolis. My husband had some in the freezer. According to the book, you want a 1:4 concentration of propolis:alcohol by weight. Put the propolis in a glass jar, pour the alcohol over it then put it in a dark warm place. Every day for 7 to 12 days shake the jar. At the end of that time period filter it. (You can use muslin or a coffee filter.) Then place the jar in the refrigerator "for a day or so," then filter again and store in a dark glass bottle. I had a limited amount of propolis and didn't want to use it all on the first experiment, so I used 62.5 grams of propolis to 250 grams of Everclear. I'll let you know in a few weeks how it turns out.
Susan

I would like a thread on this subject. Apitherapy is something that I would like to learn about. I've read that if you incorporate accupuncture along with BVT you get much better results. Drapers Super Bee in Millerton, PA does BVT, they may even help me learn more about it?